Why Was Tucker Digging a Hole? What Was Jesse Digging a Hole For? Meth Head Digging a Hole

Well, I didn’t think I needed to write this article, but Tucker’s Hole gets at least one view a day and sometimes many more hits from people doing an internet search on the questions posed in the title above, or some version of those questions. While I thought that what Jesse did (and Tucker followed) was self-evident, apparently has many people confused, and they are looking for a deeper answer. Since this site is named for this scene, I will attempt to provide a comprehensive answer for you.

The scene in question occurs in Episode 406 “Cornered”, where Mike and Jesse find themselves outside of the house of “some guys” who have obtained some of Gus / Walt / Jesse’s blue meth from the Mexican Cartel’s theft earlier in the episode. The Cartel is trying to send a message to Gus through this theft, and Mike has been sent to recover the meth. Mike tells Jesse that the people in the house they are watching are both users of the product as well as dealing it. The are also most likely armed. Mike favours staking out the house, waiting for one of the people to come outside, asking a few questions and getting their property back. Jesse, of course, does not want to sit in a car staking out a house all day, and favours more direct action.

Mike explains to Jesse that what he may or may not know about meth heads is that they are unpredictable, and he does not care for unpredictable, so they will wait for one person to emerge. Jesse doesn’t accept this, and goes to the door of the house to pretend he is there to buy, but gets turned away. Returning to the car, he tells Mike to open his trunk because he needs the shovel in there. Mike doubts what Jesse is doing, but Jesse says “I know meth heads”… basically that he can predict what they will do.

Lets learn a little about the effects of meth addiction so we can understand what Jesse is about to do, and why they dig Tucker’s Hole.

The psychological effects of addiction to methamphetamine include alertness, concentration, paranoia and increased energy. These effects are well documented in medical academia and in personal accounts. The concentration and focus of methamphetamine addicts is well-known. Addicts will spend hours dismantling and re-assembling electronics like televisions or computers, stripping them down to their bare essentials and then re-assembling them, without becoming distracted. This was reflected in Episode 402 “Thirty-Eight Snub” when an addict at Jesse’s party grabs Jesse’s Roomba and begins to dismantle it. Later in the episode we see its destroyed remains on the floor of Jesse’s house.

So back to the story of what is going on with Jesse and Tucker. Jesse is going to prey upon what he knows about meth addiction to draw one of the guys out of the house. It happens to be Tucker.

Here is the scene (sorry about the crap in the middle of the screen):

By the way, if you watch that all the way through, I think you should seek counselling for meth addiction! Hee Hee!

The whole reason Jesse starts digging the hole, and why Tucker follows his lead is due to Tucker’s meth addiction. It is simply a ruse to lure Tucker out of the house and to get Jesse (and Mike) in. Tucker will be so distracted by his focus on the hole, nothing else will matter – a classic situation when a meth addict focuses on something. Jesse succeeds in totally engaging Tucker in this “project”.

So basically, Jesse is preying upon the psychological conditions of meth addiction. Alertness is what brings Tucker out of the house and makes him pay attention to what Jesse is doing. Jesse doesn’t tell him what he is digging for… he says “you know why” – playing on Tucker’s paranoia. Tucker’s own drug-addled mind takes over, and invents something that is buried there, something he wants to see, something worth digging for. Jesse asks Tucker to take over, which indulges Tucker’s increased concentration. He has successfully lured Tucker out of the house, something that Mike was prepared to wait for hours for. Finally we see Tucker still digging when the scene is ending… more evidence of his increased concentration, and high energy level.

Jesse has succeeded to accomplish Mike’s mission in much less time than Mike would have taken.

To answer the basic question here… What were they digging for? The answer is nothing. Tucker is digging for whatever his meth affected mind made up. It was all a method of luring one of the meth heads out of the house based on what meth heads do.

Er. My dad is a meth addict and I didn’t understand the scene, personally. I don’t know a whole lot about the effects of meth. So I looked it up. I don’t get why you’re here if you understood it, though?

mm not exactly. I think this really comes from something I have seen first hand with crack addicts.. they always feel as though they have dropped a rock, so it is possible the meth head comes out and this is his thinking, i couple that with his question about ‘how far down do you think it is’ .. could be wrong.

I was thinking of this phenomenon too, crack heads call it “carpet crawling” always certain there is still some left that got dropped on the floor. I thought maybe doing meth makes you think that there is always more to be found, hidden somewhere.

I think it was poor writing. The scene made no sense, regardless of meth heads propensity to focus, why wouldn’t he be like.. wtf are you doing digging in my yard? Makes no sense. Not going to pretend it does.

You have never been on any mind altering drug then. That behavior was PERFECTLY catpured by the producers of that episode. Other behaviors with other drugs but for meth, they nailed it. Go back to sleep.

Stormreaper actually has a valid point, it was rather poor writing as far as the concept is very far fetched.

It is true that meth addicts can become very focused on tasks, however, one of the most prevalent aspects of a meth addict is paranoia. I see these on a daily basis as I work at a rehab facility in South Florida.

Therefore, in my opinion, it would be extremely unlikely that Tucker would have responded by grabbing the shovel to dig. Rather, a typical meth addict would become extremely paranoid and either confront the digger directly or hide inside, freaking out.

Now, if the addicts had somehow knew Jessie, that would have been a different story but in this episode he was a complete stranger, so again, this is hard to believe.

Nick, thanks for the explanation. I think you and some of your readers are missing another connection: a new phenomenon called “twigging”, which has become prevalent in the Southwest. http://www.archaeology.org/0903/etc/drugs.html
Am still on season 4, so not sure if we’ll see another instance of it.

I once drew for 8 hours straight on a single piece of paper while I was on meth. It was full of holes and the entire thing was black in the end. For a couple of weeks afterwards I had to deal with my pinky in my drawing hand jutting out from pressing my hand so hard into the side of the table.

Yeah it apparently is not as simple as you have written. The commenter “keepingitlettinggo” gets the gold star: the scene is referencing the “twigging” phenomenon. Therefore you should update your post since it is so popular because everyone googling looking for answers arent so stupid afterall and the scene is more complex than even you realized.

Your explanation is well thought out and very close. Most of the elements are there but you are missing one thing. Jesse is taking advantage of the fact that Tucker is in the midst of a drug induced psychosis. Jesse is able to lead Tucker’s thought process along knowing that Tucker’s mind or rather in this case his psychotic mind will fill in any blanks Jesse leaves and make up whatever story fits the situation. It doesn’t matter why the hole is being dug, Tucker’s mind has made that story up for itself based on Jesse’s suggestion that it is somehow important.

Interesting you asked. The site has been getting an average of around 200 views per day the past few weeks, but got a spike of 829 views on 9 Aug 2013 when AMC re – ran the episode with Jesse and Tucker digging. This article by far gets the most views of any on the site…. every day of the year the most searched for terms that lead to this site have to do with “why do meth heads dig holes?” or “Why did Jesse dig”, or similar searches.

I don’t think people are so confused about the whole scene in general (you go into a lot of detail setting up the scene, so I assume you believe people are confused about the scene in its entirety). I think that people are just questioning what psychological aspect of being high on meth would cause someone to unquestioningly start digging a hole to nowhere.
“Meth users are known to have high levels of concentration and focus which can cause them to pursue pointless activities relentlessly for long periods of time without being distracted,” would summarize your multi-paragraph explanation.

That’s true – that is the simple answer. This site gets over 100 hits a day (even before I wrote this article) from search engine terms like “Why did Jesse dig a hole?”, “Why was Tucker digging?”, “Breaking Bad Hole Digging”, “Why do meth heads dig?” and similar searches, so I chose to try to answer all the questions about that scene.

“Slate’s Jack Shafer recently covered this phenomenon and get the word that neurologists call this behavior “punding”: “I received a polite e-mail from Joshua Kershen of the Tufts-New England Medical Center. He informed me of the neurological concept of “punding,” the restless and repetitive assembling and disassembling of mechanical devices (watches, carburetors, radios), the obsessive lining-up of small objects, or the picking at one’s own skin. The phrase was coined to describe the ‘prolonged, purposeless, and stereotyped behaviour in chronic amphetamine users,’ according to this scientific paper (additional punding papers can be found on PubMed). Punding is also observed in people experiencing dopamine excess states, such as when patients are overtreated with Parkinson’s disease medication. Because meth, like amphetamine, causes a flood of dopamine, it stands to reason that a meth user would pund.” – http://boingboing.net/2005/08/24/sheriff-tweakers-com.html

B.S. The reason he gets Tucker interested in digging is that you can make low quality crystal called shake and bake.You have to bury it because of the cool temperature and absolute darkness.Jesse asks Tucker “How deep do you think it is?” It being the shake and bake meth.

I honestly thought he was talking about China. You know that old childhood game of digging a hole to China? So when he said, “You know why,” and when Tucker said “How deep is it?” I thought Jesse was enticing Tucker’s mind into concentrating on digging to China.

I think the twigging douchebags on here are literally digging for shit to look smarter tha the poster. The answer is simple. It doesnt MATTER what they are digging for. Its just to show the craft of jesse and his knowledge of meth heads. God are finished with your pissing contest yet?

I am pretty meticulous about proofreading and correcting spelling and grammar mistakes, although sometimes they do slip through. I just checked this article again and didn’t find any errors, so if you could e-mail me with what you spotted, I would be grateful.! (Just use the contact / feedback link at the right hand side, or bottom of the page).

Why would this be self evident? Not everyone knows the effects of meth and not everyone has been around a meth head. In the NorthEast meth isn’t as much of a problem so we don’t know as much about it. But just like we didn’t know why Tucker dug a hole you guys might not know something about a sport or taxes. Idk it seems silly to be condescending over this.

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